My Sunday Morning Neck: A Hickey At Midlife

For more middle-aged child rearing and marriage humor from Leslie find her at agingersnapped.com.

When people say, “You’ll laugh at this one day,” they’re usually right.
I can’t believe how many things in my life I thought were utter tragedies at the time they occurred, that I eventually found humorous. I stress the word eventually but, it’s hard to laugh when you are still cringing…

One Sunday morning, while my husband and I were sipping our coffee, he looked at me quizzically –

Husband: “What’s that on your neck?”
Me: “What?”
Husband: “Turn your head to the side”
Me: “What?
Husband: “Whoa…My bad”
Me: “What?”

I got up, went to look in the mirror, tilted my head to the right and there was a mark on my neck, front and center, roughly the size and shape of Wisconsin. I began to freak out, in exactly the way that ALL 52-YEAR-OLD WOMEN DO WHEN THEY FIND A SATURDAY-NIGHT HICKEY ON THEIR SUNDAY-MORNING NECK!!!!

“Oh. My. GOD!!” I screamed. “I can’t go to church or anywhere else today!! OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GGGOOOODDDD!”

Now, over the course of this 34+ year relationship, suffice it to say that this isn’t the first crisis my Hunk-of-Burning-Love and I have faced together. In fact, we started dating at 18, so it’s certainly not the first hickey we’ve faced down together. Through the years, this man has come to pride himself on always knowing just what to say to calm me down in any given situation:

“Relax,” said The Wife-Whisperer, “At your age, no one will know its a hickey, they’ll just think it’s a Liver Spot!!”

Frightened by my ever-so-apparent reaction to that remark, he went a different direction… “You need to get up and start your day, moving around will get the blood flowing and it’ll fade,” (He must’ve made that up on the spot, as it’s certainly not true…)

“I’m sooooo embarrassed,” I wailed, totally tapped into my inner Drama Queen

“Why are you making such a big deal ? Anyone who notices it will just know we are still in love…” said The-Man-Whose-Love-Life-Is-On-The-Line.

“You LITERALLY suck!” I replied

Aware that, in addition to being what my mother would refer to as a “Hussy,” I had also taken the Lord’s name in vain 4 times and it wasn’t even 8 am; I resigned myself to going to church. When it was time to get ready, I swept all of my hair into a massively thick curly/frizzy side-ponytail that more or less obscured the mark.

“Hey- I love your hair that way!” exclaimed Lover Boy –  more than a bit overzealous.

We arrived for church late and left early. Afterwards, before we headed home, we decided to run a couple of errands. We were walking into the grocery store, when, predictably, we ran into one of my close friends. We hugged in greeting and, as she hugged me, she whispered discreetly in my ear, “I don’t know if you know this or not, but you have a huge hickey on your neck”.

“I am more than aware,” I assured her.

It’s been over 4 days now, and I’ve spent a ton of time and money caking pounds of makeup on my neck, in a desperate and futile effort to preserve my tarnished reputation – which is rather pointless, because what’s left of my reputation, will be ruined the minute I publish this post.